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From: super70s <super70s@super70s.invalid>
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Subject: Re: How can I determine if my floppy drive is dead?
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2024 19:39:41 -0600
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On 2024-12-14 14:53:37 +0000, Sebastian P. said:

> In article <vintageapplemac-1412240638060001@192.168.1.134>,
>  vintageapplemac@gmail.com (scole) wrote:
> 
>> In my rebuilt PM 9600, I have been unable to successfully mount a floppy
>> disk since I put it all back together. Any disk I put in, within a second
>> or so the "Disk Is Unreadable" or whatever error appears and asks if I
>> want to initialise the disk, and many of these floppies mounted absolutely
>> fine only a few months ago when my Performa was still operational.
>> 
>> So, I'm leaning towards the drive being the issue. I do have 4 or 5 spare
>> drives so I intend to try them all out, but I've had two drives so far
>> behave in the same way. Is there any software test I can run to prove if
>> the drive is operational? Could they need a clean? Would dismantling them
>> and cleaning help???
> 
> I've had this happening with floppy disk drives too. Exactly the same 
> problem. I
> can, however, give you some hope - In both my cases, the reason was simply dirt
> inside the drive. Both drives do work again now.
> 
> I'd take out the drive and open it up, then cleaned it with some pure alcohol
> and a cotton swab. I lubricated the moving parts and suddenly the thing started
> to read and mount disks again. It was sure great to see an original 1988 Mac SE
> floppy drive coming back to life!
> 
> These floppy drives are much more reliable that they are usually credited for.
> Often it's just the dirt of decades leading to problems such as yours (another
> common one being brittle plastic gears breaking, but even these can be 
> replaced)
> 
> It's not hard to do. If you have no experience, watch some YouTube 
> videos on the
> matter before you start. They will give you an idea on what to look for 
> and what
> to avoid at all costs (e.g. bending the drive head too much)
> 
> Good luck!

Is it possible to mount a floppy drive on a system running OSX? I've 
tried that with two different external floppy drives I bought used on 
eBay and I always get a "not enough power" warning from the floppy 
drives, even though I tried plugging them directly into the USB port on 
the machine instead of a hub. I finally just gave up.